Edmunds Says Program Cost Taxpayers $24,000 per Clunker

By

Julia A. Seymour

October 29, 2009 - 1:43pm

Remember the Cash for Clunkers (CARS) program the network media liked so much? Well, according to analysis from Edmunds.com the government spent $24,000 per car when you subtract cars that would have been sold even without the program.

[1]CNNMoney.com reported Oct. 29 that only 125,000 vehicles sold under the program (out of 690,000) “would not have been sold anyway,” according to Edmunds.

The government allotted $3 billion for the CARS program, but Edmunds’ said that more than 80 percent of those cars would have been purchased anyway.

Jeremy Anwyl, Edmunds’ CEO, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Aug. 3 pointed out that in any month there are 60,000 to 70,000 “clunker-like” sales. [2]“We have crammed three to four months of normal activity into just a few days,” Anwyl concluded.

Despite misgivings from Anwyl and others, the network news media embraced the [3]government giveaway. All three networks described it as a “victim of its own success” AFTER it ran out of taxpayer funding in its first week.

Katie Couric heaped praise on CARS saying Aug. 3, “[S]ales reports out today show the Cash for Clunkers program gave U.S. automakers a much-needed jumpstart.” While CNBC’s Jim Cramer called it “money well-spent” during the “Today” show.

In clunker stories citing experts, proponents of CARS outnumbered critics nearly three times as often (between July 4 and Aug. 3).

Occasionally a downside was mentioned, such as the “five hours of paper for each car” reported by ABC’s Sharyn Alfonsi.

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